03.23.10

Ok, I’m not even that much of a Sixers fan, but I’m now officially daydreaming about Kevin Pritchard and his former Kansas coach Larry Brown in Philadelphia. One thing’s for sure, the apparently inevitable departure of KP seems about as smart as when the Sixers dumped Pat Croce. From Jason Quick of the Oregonian.

After more than 10 years of covering this team for this newspaper, this development would go down as one of the strangest and dumbest I’ve encountered.

All of this reeks heavily of a certain Western Conference general manager who is widely known to envy this job. He happens to have experience with the workings of the Vulcans. He has been on a constant smear campaign since Pritchard took over, harboring feelings that Pritchard “gloats” about his success, “rubbing it in the nose” of colleagues.

If some want to tout that source as credible, and not recognize the motives, that’s on them. And if Vulcan wants to play that way, then maybe this isn’t the place for Pritchard after all.

Two people familiar with the situation said one strong possibility to replace Pritchard is Denver GM Mark Warkentien, the reigning NBA Executive of the Year with ties to [Blazers president Larry] Miller through their Nike connections. Warkentien has a home in Portland, and is on the last year of his contract with rumblings of a serious front-office shakeup afoot in Denver. He also had a hand in the creation of the Jail Blazers, something that will be difficult -“ if not impossible -“ to sell to a community that will never forget that damnable era.

What’s also gone mostly unmentioned, for reasons that are understandable, is owner Paul Allen’s recurrence of cancer. But it seemed like Pritchard had a direct line to Allen in the past, by text message if nothing else. I was also at the press conference announcing the hiring of Miller, and my impression then is that he was supposed to be the business CEO, separate from the basketball decisions, and that both he and Pritchard would report to Allen and/or Vulcan director Tod Leiweke (who mostly runs the Seahawks), rather than Pritchard reporting to Miller. Things have obviously changed since then.

A week ago the questions surrounding the team were simple: Will they make the playoffs? Will they succeed there? Those were beautiful, vibrant questions speaking of goodness among us no matter how they were answered, even to the negative. Now the lingering question is, “Will this organization ever learn?”

No one can identify for sure when exactly the term “mid-major” became a fixture in college basketball, but the 2006 NCAA tournament — the year George Mason reached the Final Four — was clearly its boiling point.

Years from now, here’s hoping we’ll similarly look back at the 2010 Dance as the event that rendered said phrase outdated, unnecessary and (this one’s a long shot) extinct.

We’ve been conditioned to believe in some mystical distinction between schools that belong to the six power football leagues and those that don’t, even when discussing a completely different sport. But if that’s the case, how is it that 11 different conferences will be represented when this year’s Sweet 16 commences Thursday night?

But, um… that’s exactly why these teams are called “mid-majors!” Not just to distinguish them from “major” (i.e. BCS) conferences, but also to distinguish them from the 15 or so conferences – half the automatic field – that enter every March just hoping they don’t have to play on Tuesday, and NEVER make the second round. The key word should be “major,” not “mid.”

And so long as Mandel can also write:

Butler is not going to win the national championship — but it’s fully capable of preventing someone else from doing so.

There’s still a hierarchy.

Does the fact that Cornell can play with anybody mean the entire Ivy League is suddenly as good as the Big 10 (or even the Missouri Valley), especially over 30 games instead of two? Of course not. Now that the world has realized (a season too late, given Patty Mills’ health last year) there are two good West Coast Conference teams, does that mean third-place Portland should have made the field instead of Big East team #8? Maybe so.

I kind of figure if you’re really bothered by the term “mid-major,” that also means you are one. Thing is, I would argue that we need to use the term more, and define it more precisely, based on student body size, attendance and/or athletic budgets, especially with the likely tournament expansion.

Why? Because of how they pick the NCAA selection committee, which is currently made up of “ten members, including six FBS representatives, and four Division I or FCS representatives.”

So not only is the process skewed towards power programs, but there is no middle ground – as the athletic director of what is by far (given Gonzaga’s recent early flops and Memphis after Calipari) the most successful non-BCS hoops program, Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski has a lot more in common with his ACC counterpart – Xavier and Wake Forest just began a 10-year home-and-home, in fact – than someone from the Southland. Only Kent State is really part of the same world as the Horizon or Missouri Valley or the CAA, even if they’re in the other column due to football.

With 96 teams and no NIT, the big battle is going to be between those second or third “mid-major” schools and bigger-conference powers on the bubble. If the selection committee was actually divided into BCS, mid-majors (which would include the Mountain West and Conference USA) and non-majors, we might get a process that is more balanced for every school, no matter what you want to call ‘em.

Among the other highlights: Kansas needs to buy someone (a “guarantee game”) for 11/21 or 11/22, St. Bonaventure is hoping that the prospect of a game at Buffalo’s HSBC Arena might attract a “high major” opponent home-and-home, and Cameron Dollar at Seattle University is offering “competitive and creative guarantees” (is vacant Key Arena pitching in, perhaps?).

And: with a good enough opponent, Penn State dangles the prospect of ESPN or ESPN2, while Youngstown State, which needs a pair of home-and-homes, plays up its sacrificial status even more than St. Bonaventure: “We loose (sic) 5 seniors, 4 starters, 3 out of 4 top scorers. We have a lot of open dates.”

None of this is shocking of course, just interesting to see the nuts and bolts, as well as the volume of schools looking for games at any given time. I guess I’m used to college football (fewer games, and all non-conference action finalized much further in advance).

03.03.10

Print is dead? Not, apparently, to Guy Morris, who at least you can’t accuse of failing upwards. The former Kentucky and Baylor coach is now at Texas A&M University-Commerce, which I guess is where the kids who aren’t good enough to play at Texas A&M-Kingsville go. From The Battalion, via Romenesko:

Texas A&M University-Commerce football Head Coach Guy Morris admitted to police that his team was responsible for the removal of student newspapers distributed on campus Wednesday.

Hockey owns New Year’s Day the way baseball owns the Fourth of July and football owns Thanksgiving. Sure, there’s still plenty of college grid action on the first day of the year, but many big bowls have been pushed back in the name of ratings and rankings. The NHL has stepped in with the Winter Classic which will be held this year at Fenway Park, featuring the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers…

Seizing the (New Year’s) Day, league czars took the game to Wrigley Field last year and the 2009 Classic produced the NHL’s highest regular season television rating in 13 years. Now the torch has been passed to Fenway Park and the Bruins of Original Six lore. Boston is positively agog at the sight of a Zamboni parked in front of the Green Monster. I kid you not.

The average high temperature in Boston on January 1 is 38 degrees, but nobody seems to be worried about the cold.

Surely Boston sports fans don’t consider such a temperature to be “cold.” In fact, as Fanhouse’s Chris Botta reports, it may even be hot enough to get the game postponed.

Like most of the East, Massachusetts had unseasonably warm weather the last two days. On Monday, the rains came. NHL ice man Dan Craig said his weather forecasters initially told him to expect a 50 percent chance of snow on New Year’s Day. Now their projections have changed to rain….

The decision to play the 1 PM ET game on Friday between Boston and Philadelphia comes down to two factors, according to Craig. “Our focus is on player safety and fan safety.”

I’d like to say I’m looking forward to the game, but with both my alma mater and my lifelong favorite team in bowls until 4:30, I probably won’t be making time for the pathetic Flyers in what’s really just another conference game. As an event, the Winter Classic’s surely cooler than an NFL contest in London, but it doesn’t count for extra in the standings.

Which is not to say the morning football action is of major consequence, but hey, it isn’t every decade that Northwestern plays on New Year’s Day (or every century that they win a bowl). And Penn State’s still looking for its first win over a BCS Top 15 opponent (which at least gives them something in common with the University of Texas).

As a life-long Cincinnati Reds fan, Steve Driehaus couldn’t stomach supporting a resolution last week congratulating the New York Yankees on winning their 27th World Series title.

“They bought a World Series,” said Driehaus, D-West Price Hill.

When Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., and 66 co-sponsors offered the resolution last Friday, it easily passed, but 28 members – mostly from districts near Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul – voted either “no” or “present.”…

Since 1973, no resolution honoring a past World Series champion has drawn a negative vote.

The vote Friday stands in stark contrast to 1975, when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., sponsored a resolution congratulating the Reds for winning the World Series against his beloved Red Sox. The Senate approved that resolution unanimously….

Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who voted for the resolution, asked for ”the record to reflect the fact that I am a Mets fan, and I do not associate myself with the previous comments” favoring the Yankees.

Only one of the 28 naysayers was actually a representative from Pennsylvania.

10.01.09

During an online chat today, the Washington Post writer – I’d call him the “baseball writer,” but he long ago became a general sports columnist, and the header on “Ask Boswell” plugs the “Redskins, Nats, Orioles and more” – got thrown for a real loop by somebody who cared enough to ask about the so-called hottest sports team in D.C. – the Capitals, currently facing off against the Boston Bruins on a channel that I don’t receive.

Iceplex: Opening night up in Boston. Think Theo can pull a consistent season out of his … hat.

(Not the GM of the Boston Red Sox)

Tom Boswell: The regular season as been a dud. I think the post-season will be excellent. These are really entertaining teams with lots of glamor. Of course, part of the reason is that this has not been a good year for parity. A lot of rich teams have come through the draw.

You can get me to watch the Yanks, Dodgers, Red Sox, Phils, Angels or Cards any day. I’d put their chances of reaching the Series in that order __and any of them could do it. Hope the Tigers hang on for detroit and Illich’s sake. The Rox have wonderful fundamentals and strong arms. But they had their WS, didn’t they?

But to answer your question, Boston has recently gotten excited at the way their pitching has gotten back to health and Ortiz supposedly done and dsicredited is one of the top A.L. HR hitters in the second half. They’re baaaack.

Gelf Magazine’s Varsity Letters Series returns to Jan Larsen Art Studios in Brooklyn tonight (October 1), with an all-baseball night featuring authors Jennifer Ring (Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball, Larry Tye (Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend and Joe Posnanski (The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds).

And who better than to interview the prolific Posnanski (above) than CSTB’s own prolix wordsmith David Roth? My favorite parts of the interview involve Posnanski’s ever-smart, yet not dogmatic take on baseball stats and Moneyball, including several anecdotes he shares about Joe Morgan:

Bill James tells a great story about how one time Jon Miller showed Morgan Bill’s New Historical Baseball Abstract, which has Morgan ranked as the best second baseman of all time, ahead of Rogers Hornsby. Well, Morgan starts griping that this was ridiculous, that Hornsby hit .358 in his career, and Morgan never hit .358, and so on. And there it was, perfectly aligned”Joe Morgan the announcer arguing against Joe Morgan the player.

You’re right about Joe Morgan being the ultimate Moneyball-style player, too. It wasn’t just his style of play, either; Joe Morgan quotes from 1975 sound like they could have gone into the book Moneyball, verbatim. He talked all the time about how batting average was overrated, and how you had to get on base, and how RBIs were just a context statistic, and how you had to steal bases at a high percentage, and so on and so on..

This is the saddest of possible word
Bruntlett to Bruntlett to Bruntlett
Killer of rally in season absurd
Bruntlett to Bruntlett to Bruntlett
Vicious line drive that seemed destined to drop
Giving the Mets chance to come out on top
This year’s indignities simply won’t stop
Bruntlett to Bruntlett to Bruntlett

The Mets already have a victory of sorts against the Phillies on this Monday afternoon – Cliff Lee has allowed two runs (albeit, one unearned) for the first time as a National League pitcher, though the Phillies Ryan Howard hit a three-run homer off of Bobby Parnell in the first. Eric Bruntlett (filling in at SS today after playing second yesterday) is 0-1.

08.16.09

While I certainly don’t begrudge anti-corporate crusader Phil Mushnick any opportunity to rip on PSLs and Giants Stadium, my guess is that today’s heavy breathing in the Post is factually suspect — the rantings of a man who’s never bought a ticket in his life, perhaps?

AMONG the desperate come-ons the PSL/NFL Jets are dangling to those who buy season tickets is this promise: “Exclusive opportunities for other stadium events.”

Really? How so? At a time when legislation is being fast-tracked to eliminate the insidious inside trading of tickets and ticket-buying opportunities to concerts held in New Jersey venues, what does “exclusive opportunities” mean?

Friday, we called the Jets to ask. Does “Exclusive opportunities for other stadium events” mean, for example, first crack at concert tickets?

“Yes,” the salesman replied. “That means you’ll be able to buy tickets during the pre-sale [before they go on sale to the public].”

In other words, what the Jets are promising in exchange for buying season tickets — first shot at concert tickets, tickets delivered from the inside for inside trade — is precisely what’s finally being acted against by New Jersey legislators and New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, who have joined to try to eliminate such malodorous enterprise.

Current law mandates that no event in the Meadowlands can withhold from the public more than five percent of tickets for general sale. And the BOSS Act, introduced in June and in part named after Bruce Springsteen, whose New Jersey concert tickets often land in professional scalpers’ and ticket-agency hands long before the public gets first or fair crack at them, is designed to further diminish or eliminate inside ticket distribution and the double-dealing that drives it.